Pittsburgh Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen

“This is the team that drafted me. I owe them signing this contract. Why would I waste it [thinking]: ‘Maybe I can get $31 million [from another team] if I had a good year.’ Then I would be contradicting myself and going: ‘Are you doing it for the money or are you doing it because you love the game?’ I want to do it because I love the game.”

Pittsburgh Pirates’ star center fielder Andrew McCutchen, explaining why he signed a 6-year, $51.5 million contract extension with the Pirates instead of getting a lot more money by signing with a different team. (The Pirates really couldn’t afford what the market could deliver “Cutch,” and yet he stayed in Pittsburgh. He turned down millions to stay with the team that offered him his first big break when they signed him in 2006.)